


The child that fell from the sky

by Kail_lizuc



Series: A child, a box, and his babysitters [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Child Doctor (Doctor Who), Episode: s05e01 The Eleventh Hour, Gen, Rory certainly calls him that though, Well not quite, and Amy sometimes too, rory is good with kids, so Amy and Rory become space babysitters, the doctor calls himself Theta in this, the doctor regenerated into a child basically, this was fun to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25329676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kail_lizuc/pseuds/Kail_lizuc
Summary: 'This is new', the Doctor thought as he looked his recently regenerated body up and down in the mirror of that little redhead’s bathroom. And, well, yes, having a new body was the whole point of regenerating, but this was the first time he’d ever got a child’s body.It was… something he could get used to, he supposed.
Relationships: Amy Pond/Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor & Amy Pond, Eleventh Doctor & Amy Pond & Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor & Rory Williams
Series: A child, a box, and his babysitters [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840747
Comments: 8
Kudos: 70





	The child that fell from the sky

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this idea in the back burner since september, 2019, and after recently finding another fanfic with a similar idea, I finally decided to write it.
> 
> I love Eleven and I love the Ponds so freaking much tbh, so this was so much fun to write!

_ This is new _ , the Doctor thought as he looked his recently regenerated body up and down in the mirror of that little redhead’s bathroom. And, well, yes, having a new body  _ was _ the whole point of regenerating, but this was the first time he’d ever got a  _ child’s body _ .

He had noticed, right before the TARDIS went out of control, that everything seemed bigger now and that he was oh so very small, and of course, that his voice was incredibly  high and squeaky. But with the engines malfunctioning and his ship about to crash, he hadn’t had much time to dwell on it. Now though…

He blinked through his bangs, which were considerably less wet now that he’d got his hands in a towel. The little scottish girl, whose shed he had completely destroyed when the TARDIS crashed, had insisted on handing him some of her clothes, noticing that his were way too big for him, and so he was wearing a pair of black pants, yet completely barefoot, except for his socks. He kept the raggedy shirt and tie, if only because even as a child himself, her shirts were just a bit too small for him.

She had to be around six or seven years old, and if he were human, his body would be around the same age, maybe a little older. Which raised quite a few questions. He had seen Time Lords regenerating into young people and old people and people of all ages in between, but never even  _ heard _ of an adult Time Lord regenerating into a  _ child _ .

Well, there had been an untested theory about regeneration being based on one’s emotions, creating a whole new body and personality that would, at a subconscious level, help the person cope with trauma and other feelings more easily.

But it’s not like he could go back to Gallifrey and  _ ask about it _ now.

Oh, well. That was a problem for another time.  _ Now _ , he was hungry. And the scottish girl was going to cook  _ bacon _ .

—————————————

“You said you’re a doctor, but all doctors are grown-ups,” the little girl said, once they had finally sat down at the table; she was eating ice cream, he fish custard. “So, who are you really?”

If he weren’t still cooking, he’d be embarrassed to admit that it took him this long to realize that, as a child, nobody would believe he was the Doctor, much less call him that. But it’s not like he had another name or something (besides his own, but that was a secret for a reason). Maybe he could come up with a nickname… But what? He didn’t even know who he was yet, how was he supposed to give himself a  _ nickname  _ then? Oh, wait! Didn’t he use to have one during his time at the Academy? He did, yeah. Maybe he could use it again. Wasn’t it something like…

“Theta,” he finally said, “but people usually call me Doctor.”

She hummed, “Doctor Theta?”

“No, just Doctor.”

“Hm, funny.”

“Am I? Good. Funny's good,” he grinned. “And what's your name?”

“Amelia Pond.”

_ Oh, like in a fairy tale. _

—————————————

Amy was beyond confused.

First some kid breaks into her house yelling nonsense about a Prisoner Zero, next she realizes that said kid looks exactly like her Raggedy Boy from all those years ago (which, couldn’t be possible for a number a reasons; that strange boy, Theta, had to be an adult by now, just like she was), and then the kid gets incredibly worried because  _ he hadn’t meant to be six months late. _

Nevermind the alien living in a hidden room in her house, this kid was one hell of an actor if he could imitate her Doctor like that.

(That, or he  _ really  _ was who he said he was and he  _ did _ travel through time, but that was impossible, right? … _ right _ ?)

And  _ now _ , they were running— well, more like Amy was dragging him away, since he refused to walk after seeing the shed in her garden and  _ somehow _ deducing it was twelve years old.

_ (“You said six months. Why did you say six months?” he questioned, a desperate note in his tone. _

_ Wide eyed, she just insisted for them to go, before her house got incinerated or Prisoner Zero reached them, whichever happened first. But he shrugged her off, desperately looking at her for answers. _

_ “This matters. This is important. Why did you say six months?” _

_ It didn’t make any sense. None of it did. There was no way this was her Raggedy Boy, no way this child even  _ knew _ about what had happened all those years ago. But the blue box was there, and  _ he _ was there, wearing the same black pants she’d given him and that raggedy shirt with the ugly tie. Hell, he was even barefoot and his hair was slightly damp too. _

_ It made no sense to her. This boy couldn’t possibly be her Doctor, and yet…  _

_ “Why did you say five minutes?!”) _

She slowed down her pace and let go of the boy, who immediately frowned at her.

“You’re Amelia.”

“And you're a kid.”

“Amelia Pond. You’re the little girl.”

“I'm Amelia and you're a kid. How come you’re a kid?”

“I told you, I’m a time traveller.”

She rolled her eyes, “Right. Of course.”

“What happened?” he asked, voice impossibly soft and eyes scanning her face.

“Twelve years.”

“You hit me with a cricket bat.”

“Twelve years.”

“A cricket bat.”

“Twelve years and four psychiatrists.”

He frowned, “Four?”

“I kept biting them.”

“Why?”

“They said you— he—  _ the Doctor _ wasn't real.”

“I  _ am  _ the Doc—”

“ _ Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human reside— _ ”

—————————————

End of the world, twenty minutes, and he had no plan, no back-up, no Tardis, and he was stuck in  _ Leadworth _ , of all places.

And he was just a child. A very small child at that.

It was too soon. He wasn’t ready yet. His hearts, now inside a much smaller ribcage, hurt if he moved too much too fast. Not to mention his  _ feet _ ; running around with only socks on wasn’t doing him any favors (even if he couldn’t get actually hurt because of his regeneration energy, he still felt the pain it caused). He shouldn’t be out and about, honestly, much less trying to save the world. But hey, when did anything go his way?

And Amelia —now Amy, apparently— wasn’t helping much, what with slamming his tie in a car door and locking it.

“Are you out of your mind?!” He yelled, his childish voice reaching an uncomfortable pitch and cracking slightly at the end.

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

She shook her head, “No, really. Who are you?”

“Look at the sky. End of the world, twenty minutes.”

“Well, better talk quickly, then.”

_ Humans _ , he scoffed in his mind, starting to rummage in his pocket while Amy shooed the concerned owner of the car away.

“Catch,” he said, tossing the apple with the smiley face at her. “I'm the Doctor, I’m Theta. I'm a time traveller. Everything I told you twelve years ago  _ is  _ true.  _ I'm _ real. What's happening in the sky  _ is _ real, and if you don't let me go right now, everything you've ever known is over.”

She swallowed hard, but still refused to believe him.

“Just twenty minutes. Just believe me for twenty minutes,” he tried, desperately, and motioned towards the apple, “Look at it. Fresh as the day you gave it to me. And you know it's the same one… Amy, please, believe for twenty minutes.” 

Amy locked eyes with him, searching for something, and she must’ve found it because she unlocked the car.

“What do we do?”

—————————————

Rory was having a weird day.

First the coma patients chanting  _ doctor _ , then finding the same coma patients around town, and  _ then _ the sun looking all weird.

Honestly, the last thing he was expecting was for a little child to snatch his phone from his hands. The boy looked at the screen, frowned, and turned back to stared him up and down.

“Hey—” he started, but was immediately cut off by the boy.

“The sun's going out, and you're photographing a man and a dog. Why?”

“Nevermind that, are you alright?” Rory questioned, concerned about the state of the child, because he looked like a mess, shoeless and looking like a train had run him over, even if he didn’t seem very concerned about his appearance.

He noticed Amy running up to them out of the corner of his eye, and acknowledged her when she stopped, “Amy.”

“Hi!” She glanced between the two of them, and then vaguely motioned towards Rory, addressing the child. “This is Rory, my boyfriend.”

“You know him?” Rory asked, bewildered. “What happ—”

He was cut off, again, when the kid took the front of his shirt and pulled him down to be on eye level with him.

“Man and dog. Why? Tell me now.”

“Uhm…” he swallowed, and decided to humor the child, if only so he could get answers regarding who he was and why he was in such a state. “Because he can't be there. Because he's…”

“...In a hospital, in a coma.”

Rory blinked as they both finished saying the same thing.

“Yeah…” The boy nodded to himself, letting go of his shirt and grinning slightly. “Knew it. Multiform, you see?” He passes a hand through his hair absentmindedly. “Disguise itself as anything, but it needs a life feed. A psychic link with a living but dormant mind.”

Mr. Barney, the coma patient who couldn’t possibly be standing just a few feet from them, suddenly started barking, startling all three a them.

“Prisoner Zero,” the boy acknowledge, taking a few steps towards Mr. Barney.

Rory looked confused between Amy and the Doctor, “What, Prisoner Zero? What’s he talking about?”

At his side, without breaking eye contact with the barking man, Amy muttered, “I’ll explain later.”

_ Oh, thanks. Very helpful. _

But he didn’t have time to actually say something before an alien spaceship that kind of looked like a snowflake, with a big, creepy eye in it, came flying over them.

After that, quite a few things happened in the span of a minute or two.

The eye-thing scanned the whole place with a weird light; The boy started to explain something about non-terrestrial stuff and pulled out a small device with a blue light and a whirring sound —a sonic screwdriver, he’d said, whatever that meant—; vehicules started going out of control and lights exploded; and lastly, the screwdriver itself exploded.

The boy yelped, throwing the device on the ground and blowing on it. “No, no! No, don't do that!” he yelled, trying to grab it again even though it was clearly still hot.

Rory was more worried about the child’s hand than about the screwdriver, though.

The spaceship with the eye-thing flew away, out of sight and hopefully away from Earth too, and Rory turned back to see the little boy, huffing and flapping his arms about.

“No, come back. He's here!” he whined, and he looked a second away from bursting into tears. “Come back! He's here. Prisoner Zero is here. Come back, he's here! Prisoner Zero is…”

He sniffed, looking down in a defeated sort of way, until Amy caught his attention by pointing out how Not Mr. Barney melted and went down the drain.

“Well, of course it did,” the boy mumbled, and kicked the burnt screwdriver away, small tears already forming in his eyes.

Rory instantly kneeled down in front of him.

“Hey,” he called softly, not wanting to upset the child any further. Amy seemed to understand too, as she waited patiently a few steps behind them. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine,” he snapped, and promptly sniffled; he wasn’t quite crying yet.

“It’s okay to not be okay sometimes, you know that?” Rory said, and after a moment in which it became clear the kid was not going to answer, he carefully motioned towards his arm. “Can I see your hand? I saw the thing with the blue light explode, it must’ve hurt you.”

“It was my sonic screwdriver,” the boy murmured, but showed Rory his hand nonetheless. Rory wasted no time examining it, only to find it was intact. He glanced up at the boy’s face when he spoke again, “I’m fine. I’m still regenerating, so I can’t get hurt.”

_ Regenerating…? What’s that mean? _ That was what he wanted to ask, but instead he settled on a different, safer answer, “I see… That’s good. I’m Rory, by the way. What’s your name?”

The boy hesitated, shifting on his feet for a moment, and then took a deep breath.

“I’m… Theta.”

The name tugged at the corner of Rory’s mind, but he couldn’t remember from where he’d heard that name before. He didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though, since Theta looked at his wristwatch and jumped startled.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, and Rory would’ve had half a mind to tell him off for it if he didn’t look so panicked. “Only fifteen minutes left! Come on, think! No TARDIS, no screwdriver, fifteen minutes. And Prisoner Zero’s hiding in human form. We need to drive it into the open. But how?”

Amy finally stepped in, and after going back and forth for a bit, Theta came up with a plan that had Amy on board instantly. They two would clear out the whole floor of the hospital, while Theta ran to Jeff’s house to get his laptop. He didn’t say what he needed it for, and Rory would admit that he was a bit reluctant on letting a  _ little kid _ run around when there’s an alien attack about to start, but he didn’t get much of choice there, what with Theta running off and Amy dragging him away.

Rory only remembered that Theta was the name of the Raggedy Boy from Amy’s favourite game after they had took off to the hospital. And boy, was that an enlightening conversation with his girlfriend.

—————————————

There were a few thing that happened that day that were better left unquestioned, like, for example, how did a literal child manage to convince the world’s most powerful people that he could save them all?

Or how did said child drive a firetruck all the way to the hospital, when he could barely reach the pedals?

Or how did he manage to create a virus that would alert the Atraxi about Prisoner Zero with a  _ flip phone _ ?

Or, even better, how did he do all that in a span of thirteen minutes?

But, as previously stated, it was better to just left some of those questions alone.

—————————————

He was about to defeat it, to defeat Prisoner Zero. The whole world was broadcasting one simple message, and the Atraxi ship had already found them.

But he just had to open his big mouth, didn’t he? Had to reveal the plan before it was done. And now Prisoner Zero had made a link with Amy’s mind, and his whole plan was going to be completely useless.

God, not even a day with this face and he was already going to get the whole planet killed.

He dropped to his knees besides the redhead, taking her head in his tiny hands. “Amy?” he called, his voice cracking slightly as he searched for a sign that told him she could hear him. “You've got to hold on. Amy? Don't sleep! You've got to stay awake, please.”

“Hey, look,” Rory called, pointing at finger at… at… at a exact replica of the Doctor’s new body.

He stared at it, wide eyed, and then suddenly frowned, a thought coming to mind. “Why me?” he asked, confused. “You're linked with her. Why are you copying me?”

Just as he said that, a little girl came up from behind, holding Prisoner Zero’s hand. “I'm not,” she replied, a tiny smile on her face. “Poor Amy Pond. Still such a child inside. Dreaming of the magic Doctor she knows will return to save her. What a disappointment you've been.”

_ Oh _ , she’s dreaming about him. And that could only mean one thing…

He’s going to count his lucky stars that she could still hear him while out, because he really didn’t know what he would have done otherwise.

As he watched the Atraxi take away Prisoner Zero, he decided he was going to worry about whatever the  _ Silence _ , and  _ Pandorica _ , and the  _ cracks _ meant at a later time. For now though, he had one more thing that he needed to do to wrap this all up.

“He did it,” Rory announced to Amy, as she finally woke up. “Theta did it.”

And it was only because he felt all warm inside by the praise that he didn’t deny it, and simply concentrated on the task at hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Tracking the signal back,” he muttered, and spared a somewhat guilty glance back at them, “Sorry, in advance.”

“About what?” the nurse asked, and he made a face.

“The bill.”

—————————————

Rory and Amy watched as the boy who had practically single handedly avoided the end of the world finished typing and brought the phone up to his ear with a confidence they hadn’t seen before on him.

“Oi, I didn't say you could go!” Theta exclaimed, and Rory’s eyes widened.  _ Was he trying to bring the aliens back?! _ “Article fifty seven of the Shadow Proclamation.  _ This _ is a fully established, level five planet, and you were going to burn it? What?” He continued, his voice lowering to a growl that even being a child managed to be threatening. “Did you think no-one was watching? You lot, back here,  _ now _ .”

And he hung up, tossing the phone back to Rory carelessly and starting to walk away at a brisk pace.

_ Oh God _ , he thought as he got up to follow, what had this child just  _ done _ ?!

—————————————

The Doctor abruptly turned right and into a locker room, hoping to find something that would fit his body better than the raggedy shirt he was currently wearing.

“What’s in here?” Amy questioned, following him in first.

“I’m saving the world— I need a better shirt,” he explained, looking around as he ran. He found a pile of neatly folded clothes sitting over a chair with a sticky note on top. It had his name,  _ Doctor _ , written on Gallifreyan in it, so it wasn’t hard to figure out who left it there for him. He grinned, “No more raggedy. It’s showtime now!”

“You just summoned aliens back to Earth,” Rory started rambling anxiously, mostly to himself, probably just catching up with the most recent events of today, as he watched the Doctor trying to unbutton his shirt. Key word being  _ trying _ . “Actual aliens, deadly aliens, aliens of death, and— Do you need help with that?”

The Doctor blinked at him, and then back at the buttons. “No,” he pouted, and decided to squirm his way out of the shirt as if it  _ didn’t  _ have any buttons at all. 

He could have sworn he heard Amy giggle, but he ignored it in favor of figuring out the stripped t-shirt (thankfully buttonless), the red bow tie, the suspenders, and the brown tweed jacket. There was even a pair of black, ankle-high boots in there!

He fidgeted with the shoelaces for a bit, trying to tie them properly and successfully failing at it, until a pair of hands —bigger than his, he warily noticed. Everything was bigger than him now, and he pointedly tried to ignore how anxious that fact made him feel— stopped him, taking the shoelaces from him.

“Here, let me…” Rory muttered, tying them both with no effort as the Doctor stared in wonder. “There, done!”

The Doctor blinked, and then grinned, getting up with a jump and skipping away with the bow tie hanging loosely around his neck and the suspenders falling by the sides.

“Thanks, Rory!” he called back, and he heard two pairs of footsteps follow him to the stairs. He looked back for a second, realizing that he forgot to grab the jacket, but kept going once he caught a glimpse of it in Amy’s arms.

He smiled.

—————————————

“So this was a good idea, was it?” Amy asked Theta as they were entering the roof, voicing Rory’s exact thoughts. “They were leaving.”

“Leaving is good. Never coming back is better,” the boy replied simply, putting the suspenders over his shoulders. He looked up, to where the alien ship was hovering in the air, and sent Rory and Amy a small grin before shouting, “Come on, then! The Doctor will see you now.”

The giant eyeball dropped in front of them, and Rory shared a concerned look with his girlfriend.

It seemed to scan Theta, who wasn’t even bothered by it. “You are not of this world,” it stated, and honestly? That wasn’t even the most surprising thing Rory had heard today, but his eyes still widened a bit in response.

“No, but I've put a lot of work into it.” Theta looked down at his bow tie, trying to adjust it for a moment before showing it off to the eyeball, “What do you think? Cool, isn’t it?”

“Is this world important?”

_ Ah, that was the wrong thing to say _ , Rory thought as he saw Theta frowning deeply, as scowl on his face as he glared at the eyeball with more force than he ever thought he’d see in a child’s look.

“ _ Important _ ?” he repeated, in a disbelieving tone. “What's that mean,  _ important _ ? Six billion people live here. Is that important? Now, here's a better question. Is this world a threat to the Atraxi?” He stared at the alien, waiting for an answer, and when none came, he sighed exasperatedly. “Well,  _ come on _ . You're monitoring the whole planet. _ Is this world a threat? _ ”

A projection of Earth, almost as big as the eyeball itself, appeared in between them, and it seemed to be looking through images of recorded history.

“No,” it finally conceded.

But Theta wasn’t done yet, “Are the people of this world guilty of  _ any  _ crime by the laws of the Atraxi?”

Another moment, another search, and then, “No.” 

“ _ Okay. _ One more. Just one.” Rory found himself holding his breath in anticipation. “Is this world protected? Because you're not the first lot to come here. Oh, there have been  _ so many _ .”

The hologram showed alien after alien after alien, and it felt as if that search was going to be  _ endless _ . But then Theta spoke again.

“And what you've got to ask is, what happened to them?”

As the projection shifted to show not only all those aliens from the last search, but also how all of them got defeated by a man, different each time but Rory had the feeling that wasn’t quite the case, Theta walked back to them and took the jacket from Amy, putting it on and adjusting the sleeves.

Theta walked back to his position in front of the giant eyeball, and when it seemed that it was going to run out of faces show, he stepped forward. The hologram disappeared, and left was him, smiling.

“Hello. I'm the Doctor,” he said, and it sent shivers down Rory’s back. “Basically,  _ run _ .”

There was a beat of tense silence, and then the eyeball flew back to its ship, and all aliens disappeared in just a matter of seconds.

_ They’re fleeing _ , Rory realized. Running away from a child like their lives depended on it. And it made him wonder,  _ who exactly was he? _

When he looked back at where Theta had been just a moment ago, he found the space empty. And when he looked down, he saw him running away from the hospital.

_ How did he get that far so fast? _

—————————————

The Doctor reached the TARDIS gasping for air, and he paused a moment outside just to admire her before using his key.

“Okay, what have you got for me this time?”

He stepped inside, and his lips parted in a wide grin almost instantly.

“Look at you. Oh, you precious thing! Look at you!”

He ran to the new console, which should have been too high up for his new body but his TARDIS had thought of everything and made an extra step all around it just for him.

He leaned on it, whispering softly, “Thanks, dear.”

He animatedly tried it out, his first trip in his eleventh face, to and back from the moon just to see how it went. And  _ oh _ , how he loved this!

Although he still had to look around in the wardrobe for clothes, so he could leave them at the hospital’s locker room for his younger self to find.

Oh well, first things first.

—————————————

He came back to the garden, parking right next to the shed without crashing it this time, and Amy had ran out of the house almost immediately in her nightie, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Sorry about running off earlier. Brand new Tardis. Bit exciting,” he said happily, leaning back and forth on the soles of his feet. “Just had a quick hop to the moon and back to run her in. She's ready for the big stuff now.”

“It's you. You came back,” she breathed, and the Doctor had the impression she sounded… relieved? Had she perhaps been worried that he wouldn’t come back this time?

“Course I came back. I always come back.”

She raised an eyebrow, “And you kept the clothes.”

“They were always mine. I left them there for my past self to find.” He grimaced, “You know how difficult it would’ve been to find decent clothes that actually suited me in a  _ hospital _ , if I hadn’t done that?”

“Right,” she said slowly, and even though she eyed the bowtie amusedly, she didn’t comment on it. “Are you from another planet?”

“Yep!”

“O—kay.”

“So what do you think?” he asked, and when she raised an eyebrow, he added, “Other planets. Want to check some out?”

“For real?”

He nodded enthusiastically.

Amy hummed, quietly analysing him. “All that stuff that happened. The hospital, the spaceships, Prisoner Zero,” she started, and the Doctor grinned.

“Oh, that's just the beginning. There's loads more.”

“Yeah, but those things, those amazing things, all that stuff…” she crouched down in front of him to make better eye contact, and then softly informed him, “That was two years ago.”

“Oh,” he breathed. “So that’s… Fourteen years, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Fourteen years since fish custard,” he repeated, fidgeting. “Amy Pond, the girl who waited. You've waited long enough.”

He snapped his fingers and the door behind him opened by itself.

“Wanna come with me then?”

Amy glanced briefly at him before stepping in. Her eyes widened and she gasped, looking around and trying to wrap her human mind in the bigger on the inside aspect of the TARDIS.

“Well? Anything you want to say? Any passing remarks?” he bounced back to the console. “I've heard them all.”

"I'm in my nightie," she finally said, and even if it was a little disappointing to not hear the usual  _ it’s bigger on the inside! _ from the human, he let it slide just this once.

"Oh, don't worry. Plenty of clothes in the wardrobe. And possibly a swimming pool," he muttered the last part. " _ So _ , all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will. Where do you want to start?"

Amy narrowed her eyes as she took a moment to study him.

"Why me?"

"Why not?" he asked back. "You seem like fun. Do I need any more reason?"

Something suddenly popped up in the console, distracting them, and the Doctor grinned. He took it and inspected it.

"Oh! A new one! Lovely." He leaned over the console, and smiled, "Thanks, dear."

Amy hummed in thought, and walked up to him.

"Can we go get Rory? If I'm going to babysit you through all of space and time, I'm gonna need some help."

"The nurse? Sure thing!" he pressed a few buttons and pulled down a lever, and Amy barely had time to grab a hold of something before they started spinning. "Hold on, did you just said  _ babysit _ ? I don't need babysitting!"

She didn't grace him with a reply, instead running up to the door and throwing it open. They were in the middle of Rory’s stag party, well, not in the middle per say, more like to the side, half hidden behind a door, but still at the party, and Rory had certainly noticed them, if his mouth hanging open and the staring was anything to go by.

Amy’s to-be-husband excused himself from his friends and practically ran up to them, a question clear in his face. But she didn’t give him time to ask anything, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the TARDIS with an excited shout of, “He’s back. Come on!”

Rory looked around the TARDIS in bewilderment, until he caught sight of the Doctor standing just a few feet from them and his breath caught in his throat.

“Is that…?”

“Rory!” the Doctor called, jumping from the step around the console and skipping towards him. He stopped short just before colliding with him, and smiled widely, “Good to see you again! Fancy a trip to space?”

“It’s you,” Rory whispered, pointed a finger at him. “You’re… back.”

“Yes. Sorry I’m late. I’m still getting the hang of the new controls,” he gestured wildly at the console behind him. “Now—!”

“But how come you haven’t grown?” Rory interrupted, looking him up and down. “You— You look exactly the same as two years ago… ” he trailed off.

“Rory, this is a time machine,” the Doctor said, in that derisive tone children often had when an adult made a very silly question. “Two years ago was thirty minutes ago to me.”

“Of course…”

The Doctor clapped his hands in front of his chest and bounced a little on the sole of his feet. The grin was back in his face, too.

“Now! With that settled,” he spun around and hopped up the console. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Uh…” Rory looked between Amy and the Doctor for a moment, before taking a few steps towards the latter. “Can you get us back for tomorrow morning?”

“Like I said, time machine,” he rolled his eyes. “I can get you back five minutes ago. Why, what's tomorrow?”

“We’re getting married,” Amy replied excitedly, showing off the ring in her finger.

“Oh, you’ve been upgraded!” the Doctor exclaimed, looking towards Rory and clapping his hands enthusiastically. “From boyfriend to fiancé and tomorrow to husband, that’s great! And don’t worry, back in time for the wedding!”

He giggled a little, and then jumped as an idea popped in his mind.

“Oh! I know  _ just  _ the place for the two of you!”

The Doctor grinned, writing down the coordinates and pressing a few buttons. He paused just before pushing down the lever and gazed back at them.

“Hold on tight, Ponds! Goodbye Leadworth, hello everything!”


End file.
